What is worrying is that Majeed is hardly an exception. One of the facets of Islamic State that has been grabbing headlines - apart from grisly videos of beheading style executions - is its frighteningly effective recruitment of young men from around the world.
Younes Abaaound from Belgium for instance, created shockwaves when IS released a picture of the baby faced 13 year old boy brandishing a AK-47.
Similarly 17-year-old Australian Abdullah Elmir who went to join IS after telling his parents he was going on a fishing trip, made headlines when he was shown in a six minute video threatening Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbot. Closer to home, Mohammed Kasab was 23-years-old when he became the face of the 26/11 attacks.
And its not just boys who are seem to be falling under the spell of radicalised terror. In France alone, there are more than a hundred documented cases of young girls leaving to join the Islamic State. Two Bosnian girls, Samra Kesinovic, 17, and her friend Sabina Selimovic, 15 became poster girls for the group. They soon had a change of heart -- calling their parents and asking to come home -- but neither have been heard from since.
So why do the young idolise terrorism? Maybe for the same reason they idolise pop stars and celebrities. Much like a celebrity, the terrorist possesses that ineffable charm we call 'glamour'.
Shortly after Rolling Stone magazine controversially featured the Boston bomber on its cover in 2013, author Virginia Postrel wrote in Time magazine,"Glamour gives its audience the feeling of "if only"--if only I could belong to that group, wear that dress, drive that car, date that person, live in that house. If only I could be like that.
By embodying our longings in a specific image or idea, glamour convinces us, if only for a moment, that the life we yearn for exists. That dream can motivate real-world action, whether that means taking a resort vacation, moving to a new city, starting a band or planting a bomb with visions of martyrdom. What we find glamorous helps define who we are and who we may become."
"Terror is glamour--not only, but also," author Salman Rushdie noted in a 2006 interview, where he argued that extremists "are influenced by the misdirected image of a kind of magic ... The suicide bomber's imagination leads him to believe in a brilliant act of heroism, when in fact he is simply blowing himself up pointlessly and taking other people's lives."
Areeb Majeed's life offers damning proof of terror as glamour. By his own confession, he and his friends were drawn not to the ideology of radical Islam but the machismo of combat. When that expectation was thwarted, he wanted to out.
According to a report in the Telegraph, the boy was reportedly angry that he wasn't being allowed the glory of being on the front lines of battle:
"Arif has allegedly told the NIA that he had been assigned “insignificant” jobs like “cleaning toilets and scavenging” and “guarding women who would be brought in to pleasure his IS bosses... Anti-terrorism squad officers in Mumbai who are working with the NIA say Arif’s “prime grouse is that he was not allowed by the IS leadership to get involved in direct combat”.
In other words, he was drawn by the glamour of battle not by genuine ideological commitment -- much as it was with the many young boys who jostled to join the Mumbai underworld a decade ago.
Terror groups themselves are only too aware that they need to 'draw' recruits if they are to survive. And as more and more groups jostle for the mindspace of the same section of youth, they end up planning and carrying out more and more audacious acts of terror, intended to impress potential recruits as much as they are intended to cause harm.
As pointed out by Firstpost editor R Jagannathan, "It is worth recalling that even the 26/11 terror attacks in Mumbai - where the Taj and Oberoi hotels, the CST suburban terminus, the Jewish Chabad House and the Leopold restaurant were targeted - was the direct result of a conflicted Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) trying to keep its organisation together in the face of more radical calls for participation in global jihad... The Lashkar, which was nurtured and encouraged by the ISI to target India, was thus in danger of splitting between its pro-al-Qaeda and pro-ISI factions, and it needed a spectacular terror extravaganza to keep its flock together."
In fact, he warns that the competition between al-Qaeda and the Islamic State for the Indian subcontinent may well lead to another 26/11 style attack, as both groups try to "wow" their future believers.
And Indian officials themselves know that this is a factor. According to a report in The Times of India, at an internal security meeting, Intelligence Bureau (IB) director Sayed Asif Ibrahim "raised serious concerns about the Indian diaspora being exposed to the 'glamour' of ISIS".
Terror groups hold out the promise of what young, especially impoverished, boys ache for most: Power, agency and rebellion. Violence has always served as an easy short-hand for masculinity, a message drilled in by popular culture around the world, be it in Bollywood movies or rap songs. What better way to flout the rules than with an AK-47 in your hands? As Postrel notes, "To be a jihadi warrior, these images suggest, is to be a man. Martial glamour is as ancient as Achilles. It promises prowess, courage, camaraderie and historical importance. It offers a way to matter. "
There will always be many young Majeeds aching to matter in Kalyan and elsewhere. And there will always be an unscrupulous terrorist or criminal organisation eager to tap into that ache. The question is whether we as a society can diminish their lure, or else offer a reasonable substitute.
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